OUR LIST OF 2012’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 13

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2012  3 Responses »
Jan 112013
 

Welcome to the lucky 13th part of our list of the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs. Each day (almost) until the list is finished, I’m posting at least two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. To see the selections that preceded the two I’m announcing today, click here.

We’re getting deeper into death metal territory today. There will be plentiful bludgeoning. Internal organs may be damaged. Massive head trauma may result. But cretinous smiles will be left at the end. Or maybe I should just speak for myself.

PUTREVORE

If you were looking for pure, unadulterated, unforgiving, horrific death metal in 2012, you couldn’t go wrong with this multinational band’s album, Macabre Kingdom. This second full-length collaboration between Dave Rotten of Avulsed and Rogga Johansson of Sweden was, for me, the 2012 counterpart to the previous year’s debut by Disma, Towards the Megalith: an unstoppable battle tank of metal that  was both catastrophic in its atmospherics and also strangely addictive.

I wrote a notice about the album last April after seeing Juanjo Castellano’s stunning cover art, but I failed to review the album. I was too scared. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2012’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 12

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2012  6 Responses »
Jan 102013
 

This is Part 12 of our list of the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs. Each day (almost) until the list is finished, I’m posting at least two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. To see the selections that preceded the two I’m announcing today, click here.

We’re wading into death metal waters today and I plan to be here for the next few days. With these next two songs from two of my favorite 2012 albums, we’re not tip-toeing in either. We’re taking a deep dive into turbulent rapids.

AEON

I reviewed this Swedish band’s fourth album Aeons Black here, naming it one of the year’s top five death metal releases — without figuring out what the other four might be. It’s premium face-melting death metal, a 51-minute collection of mainly superheated songs spewing hellfire, with big, hook-filled, piston-driven rhythms that hammer and pummel and blast like heavy-caliber weaponry.

Yet there’s more to the album than a whirlwind of decimation, and the song I picked for this list is a good example of what I mean. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2012’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 11

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2012  6 Responses »
Jan 092013
 

After taking an extra day to collect my thoughts about what should come next on this list, which is sort of like trying to collect hummingbirds, I’m prepared to resume.

This is Part 11 of our list of the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs. Each day (almost) until the list is finished, I’m posting at least two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. To see the selections that preceded the two I’m announcing today, click here.

2012 was a banner year for what could be broadly termed technical death metal. I do think that’s a broad term, which could encompass everything from Hate Eternal or the ephemeral Necrophagist to Atheist, from the brutal and largely atonal to the melodic and experimental. But across that range, 2012 was a great year.

I will say that as much as I enjoy “tech death”, “infectious” isn’t a word I would often apply to the music. It can be galvanizing and even intellectually involving without being memorable. But the songs I’m adding today were both. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2012’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 10

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2012  11 Responses »
Jan 072013
 

This is Part 10 of our list of the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs. Each day until the list is finished, except today, I’m posting two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. To see the selections that preceded the three we’re announcing today, click here.

Australian metal killed it in 2012. I’m not saying that Australian metal bands weren’t killing it before last year, but in 2012 they put a stake through the heart and cut the head off. I’ve already included a song from one Australian band in this list (Gospel of the Horns), and today I’m adding three more — three songs from three great albums that helped make 2012 a banner year for metal from Down Under.

BE’LAKOR

Andy Synn reviewed Be’lakor’s Of Breath and Bone for us here. One song in particular infected me, and it brings a smile every time I hear its opening notes. The song is “Remnants”, and here’s what Andy had to say about it:  Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2012’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 9

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2012  5 Responses »
Jan 062013
 

This is Part 9 of our list of the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs. Each day until the list is finished, I’m posting two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. To see the selections that preceded the two we’re announcing today, click here.

For most people, today’s two songs will come like a bolt out of left field. Though both songs did receive passing mention here, the bands aren’t exactly household names and we haven’t reviewed either of the albums where these songs appeared. One of the albums isn’t even due for release in the U.S. until this coming week. But these songs are among the most infectious I heard in 2012, and it would be just plain wrong not to give them a place on this list.

ZATOKREV

I first heard about this Swiss band last April when I saw they had been signed by Candlelight Records and became intrigued by the name of their new album (the third in their discography): The Bat The Wheel And The Long Road To Nowhere. In June, the opening track began streaming, and I ate it up. I had a second helping when they released a wonderful video for that same song in July (featured here, with orgasmic praise). Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2012’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 8

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2012  6 Responses »
Jan 052013
 

This is Part 8 of our list of the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs. Each day until the list is finished, I’m posting two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. To see the selections that preceded the two we’re announcing today, click here.

Well, it’s time for some fucking death metal, also known as death fucking metal and metal of fucking death, depending on how excited you are or how much you’ve had to drink. I’m pretty excited about both of today’s bands. They’re both from the UK and both of them produced 2012 albums that vaulted them onto lots of people’s radar screens. They both churn out music that’s the aural equivalent of sticking your head in a blast furnace, and as a side note, their album covers remain among my favorites of the past year.

BLOODSHOT DAWN

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve written about this band and their self-titled 2012 album, which remains one of my favorite releases of the year (as explained in my January review). In April,we featured an official video for a track from the album called “Visions”, and in August we followed that with their video for “Godless”, which is the song I picked for this list. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2012’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 7

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2012  3 Responses »
Jan 032013
 

This is Part 7 of our list of the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs. Each day until the list is finished, I’m posting two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. To see the selections that preceded the two we’re announcing today, click here.

When I started the rollout of this list, I explained that I had expanded the range of my metal listening during 2012. I even opened my mind to more music in the stoner/doom vein despite (gasp!) the presence of clean vocals, because there’s so much meat on those riff bones, and I do love a pulverizing riff.

Genre boundaries blur, and I don’t think either of the bands whose songs I’m adding to our list today clearly fit into that stoner/doom category, though there’s some kinship.  Their classic riffs bring the beef in truckloads and their vocals are (sort of) clean. In fact, ironically, for me the vocals have been a main draw for both of these bands.

VENOMOUS MAXIMUS

Houston-based Venomous Maximus are yet another band with a superb 2012 album that we never got around to reviewing. I feel especially guilty about that, given how many aural orgasms Beg Upon the Light has given me. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2012’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 6

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2012  1 Response »
Jan 022013
 

This is Part 6 of our list of the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs. Each day until the list is finished, I’m posting two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. To see the selections that preceded the two we’re announcing today, click here.

I was all set to write the introduction to this installment of our list, and then BadWolf did it for me over at Invisible Oranges: 2012 was the year in which often occult-themed classic rock stylings from the 60s and 70s made a big splash in the metal pool. I don’t mean to suggest that there weren’t bands playing that kind of music before 2012 — to the contrary. But it really seemed to take off last year.

I liked quite a bit of what I heard, but I was most partial to the bands who mixed some vocal ugliness into their hook-filled retro stew (I know, what a shocker). And that leads me to our next two additions to this list. Neither of them really quite fits the profile of the bands BadWolf mentions in his IO piece, but they’re related.

ARKHAMIN KIRJASTO

On their 2012 debut album Torches Ablaze (which I reviewed here), the Finnish duo known as Arkhamin Kirjasto pulled off a neat trick: combining throwback heavy metal and rock riffs, death metal vocals, atmospheric guitar touches, and Lovecraftian lyrics in a way that was as interesting as it was (and is) irresistible. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2012’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 5

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2012  7 Responses »
Jan 012013
 

This is Part 5 of our list of the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs. Each day until the list is finished, I’m posting two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. To see the selections that preceded the two we’re announcing today, click here.

My tastes have evolved and expanded dramatically since NO CLEAN SINGING was established more than three years ago. They’ve changed significantly even over the course of this past year. You’re about to find out just how much they’ve changed.

There was a time when the only metal songs I found infectious were ones with catchy hooks and memorable melodies. Now I’m finding that even music that’s utterly blistering or obliterating can also stick in my head. No matter how challenging that kind of music may be to some listeners, to omit it from this list would be hypocritical, because I’ve enjoyed so much of it this year. And so today I bring you Nekromantheon and Pseudogod.

NEKROMANTHEON

I first came across (and wrote about) this Norwegian band in December of 2011, when they released an advance track from their then-forthcoming 2012 release Rise, Vulcan Spectre. I subsequently listened to the entire album — it’s one of many 2012 releases I loved but never found time to review. The style of their music is a certain kind of thrash. But it’s not let’s-get-drunk-and-fuck thrash. It’s more like let’s-find-innocent-children-and-sacrifice-them-to-Cthulhu thrash. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2012’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 4

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2012  7 Responses »
Dec 312012
 

This is Part 4 of our list of the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs. Each day until the list is finished, I’m posting two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. To see the selections that preceded the two we’re announcing today, click here.

The songs I’m rolling out today make for a tasty but nasty pairing. Unless I miss my guess, they’ll root their way under your skin in a heartbeat and proceed to swarm your system, take command of your brain stem, and compel head nodding and fist-pumping — and maybe a “Hail Satan!” or two.

CHAPEL

Chapel are based in Vancouver, Canada and they released their debut album — Satan’s Rock ‘n’ Roll — on August 1 via the Irish label Invictus Productions. I found out about them via a recommendation from NCS patron SurgicalBrute and proceeded to write about them here. To crib from my own words about the album:

“It fucken rips hell. It’s not hard to imagine that if hell were real, this would be the party music of choice. Matching rock and punk beats with filthy riffs, burned-raw vocals, and acetylene solos, Chapel have created a virally infectious debut release.” Continue reading »

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